MONTGOMERY -- Gov. Robert Bentley said Monday he's open to rewriting part of a plan that could let some companies keep most of the state income taxes they withhold from employees' pay instead of sending the money to Alabama's Education Trust Fund.

He said changes to the plan, House Bill 160, could include having part of the bill expire within a few years, and setting a cap on how much income tax money could be given to companies that didn't create any new jobs but stayed in Alabama and stayed in business.

"I just believe we can work through this and come up with a good compromise," Bentley said in an interview.

Bentley called on lawmakers to pass the bill along with its companion, House Bill 159. HB 159 would let voters decide whether to rewrite the state constitution to let approved companies keep income tax withholdings of employees to repay the costs of new equipment, factory expansions or other capital improvements.

Almost all income tax collections now are reserved by the constitution for the Education Trust Fund, the main source of state tax dollars for public schools and colleges, and critics have pointed out that the amount of money the bills would take away from that fund is unknown.

House bills 159 and 160 zipped through the House of Representatives last month but have faced lots of questions from senators. The Senate Finance and Taxation-Education Committee debated but did not vote on HB 160 last week.

Under the bill as written, the governor could let a company, in return for building or expanding a facility in Alabama, keep from 50 percent to 90 percent of the state income taxes withheld from the pay of new employees at the facility. That part of the bill has sparked relatively little debate.

But under another part of the bill, for "retention projects," the governor and his appointees could let a company keep from 1 percent to 75 percent of the state income taxes withheld from the pay of all employees at a facility, not just new employees.

A company could qualify for retention-project incentives if it spent at least $2 million to renovate or expand a facility, except that the qualifying investment would drop to at least $500,000 if a plant or other facility was in a "favored geographical area," typically one with high poverty rates.

A company could get the tax benefit even if it later laid off 20 percent, and in some cases 33 percent, of the employees working at a facility at the time the company qualified for the incentive.

The tax benefit could last 20 years or until a company recovered all the money it spent on an expansion or renovation.

A governor could grant incentives for a retention project only if the state industrial development authority, now composed of three of the governor's appointees, also approved.

Bentley said he was open to rewriting the retention-project section of the bill to:

End it after some period, perhaps one, two or three years. He said the Legislature then could decide whether to renew the tax benefit.

Cap the amount of state income taxes that could be awarded companies under that section. He didn't specify an amount.

Require approval of any retention project by a second elected official besides the governor, perhaps the lieutenant governor, the House speaker or the top-ranking state senator.

"The retention part is causing most of the problem," Bentley said. "I'm very amenable to compromise and coming up with something people are comfortable with."

Sen. Phil Williams, R-Rainbow City, said he and other senators are working on changes to HB 160, some of which are similar to what Bentley mentioned.

"He's right in line with what we're already working on," said Williams, a strong supporter of the bills.

He said he didn't know when the proposed changes would be reviewed by the Finance and Taxation-Education Committee, but said he hoped it would be Wednesday.

Henry Mabry, executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association, said the group would fight changing the constitution so companies could keep some income taxes withheld from employees' pay.

"We already are underfunded in education," he said. "We don't need what little goes to education to be taken away."

But Bentley said approval of House bills 159 and 160 would give him another tool to try to recruit new companies and keep struggling ones already in Alabama from closing. "It is easier to retain a job than it is to create a new job," he said.